unsustainable
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unsustainable
1670–80; un- 1 + sustainable ( def. )
Explanation
If something is unsustainable, there's just no way to keep doing it at the same rate or in the same way. You've been able to keep your new puppy from whining by petting her all night long, but that's unsustainable. When you can bear something, or continue it, it's sustainable, from the Latin root sustinere, "bear or endure." Unsustainable things can't go on, like unsustainable economic growth that's bound to level out or drop eventually, or an unsustainable expectation that you will always have a perfect grade point average. When it comes to the environment, practices that cause long-term harm or deplete resources are also unsustainable: "Ending unsustainable fishing practices successfully revived the salmon population."
Vocabulary lists containing unsustainable
Power Prefix: un-
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Organisms and Environments 1: The Environment
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myPerspectives 7.4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Still, $40 trillion is a big number, likely to at least briefly draw attention to what economists broadly agree is an unsustainable fiscal trajectory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Penn’s budget quants estimate that at the current trajectory, the U.S. national debt will become unsustainable in about 20 years.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
LAUSD’s problems mirror those of other large urban school districts: unsustainable spending, particularly on administration and employee benefits, combined with shrinking enrollment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
The letter says that "successive governments' adjustments to repayment thresholds – together with high interest and marginal tax rates – are placing an unsustainable burden on the next generation of workers".
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesn’t merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
